Yucaipa students experience life of the Renaissance Period

Timilione and several other teachers including Rebekah Murch, Karen Hanley, and Baretta Hagen conducted workshops and guided seventh and eighth grade students in games and activities on Friday at Canyon Middle School for the school's eighth annual, "Renaissance Faire."

Seventh and eighth graders engaged themselves in wheat weaving, games of Rounders (similar to baseball), Nine Men's Morris, juggling, Renaissance dance, calligraphy, and a Shakespearean play.

Timilione gathered together boys and girls, who were dressed for the period as peasants, paupers and royalty. She paired them side-by-side and guided them through an informal peasant dance and later a much more formal affair called the masquerade dance.

"Dance was important for socialization to meet and prepare to get married at age 13 and 14," she told her mix of eager and somewhat reserved, and mostly inexperienced young dancers. "If you lived into the (age) 40s you were doing pretty good. When you turned 13 your parents would start looking around for someone for you to marry and the (boys) were looking for opportunities to make a living."

At the blacksmithing workshop, students flattened round metal rods on anvils with heavy hammers. And at the equestrian workshop they learned how important horses were to gallant knights.

Anthony Dickerson, 13, dressed in the period as a joker, someone who made people laugh, he said. His eyes stayed focused on his fingers as he weaved wheat strands into a heart shape.

"The guy would give the heart to his girl so the other guys would know that the girl belonged to him," Anthony said.

Seventh grade Canyon history teacher Rebekah Murch explained at the workshop that the wheat corsage would be worn when the girl went to town. "She would parade around (as if) saying I am this young man's maiden."

All in all, the Renaissance Faire workshops reinforced what students are learning in the classroom said Baretta Hagen, who has coordinated the Faire for three years.

"The get a little bit of art, of history, of English, of science," she said. "It reinforces several key California State Standards in math, social science, English, art, and physical education. And they get a hands on real life experience of what the Renaissance Period was like."